Positron

A Next Generation IDE from Posit

Marc Weber

2025-04-28

First, A Caveat

What is Positron?

  • Positron is a next-generation data science IDE (as opposed to software engineer IDE)
    • Code-first mentality
    • A polyglot IDE where you can do all your data science (currently support for just R and Python)
    • Most IDEs out there built primarily for just one language (i.e. RStudio, Spyder, MATLAB)
    • Uses languages as ‘language packs’ on the backend - highly extensible

Why Positron?

  • You can use more than one language easily and seamlessly
  • Extensible and familiar
  • Design inspired by RStudio
  • Fundamentals based on OpenOSS - the open-source foundation of VSCode

What does it look like?

  • How / where running code
  • File you’re running
  • Sandbox for development
  • Panes to understand code / data

What does it look like?

  • How / where running code
  • File you’re running
  • Sandbox for development
  • Panes to understand code / data

What does it look like?

How does it work? Extensibility

  • Extensibility: languages are not ‘baked in’ - they come as ‘language ’packs’
  • Programming languages communicate through an API with the IDE
  • Switch between languages and language versions easily in same session using the interpreter selector

How Does it Work? Next-Gen Data Explorer

  • Poitron has a next-generation data explorer built in

What does it look like? Next-Gen Data Explorer

What does it look like? Advanced Filtering in Data Explorer

Why a New IDE Rather Than Enhancing RStudio?

  • RStudio is a two-process system

  • Everything in the main RStudio window is one process that runs R, saves files, generating plots, everything else

    • This is why RStudio bogs down when big R processes running

  • Outside the main RStudio window is Electron, the chrome ‘frame’ around RStudio

Why a New IDE Rather Than Enhancing RStudio?